Little is known of P.’s life. He is recorded as being at the university of Perugia in 1489. Afterwards he served as commercial agent for the king of Portugal, Manuel I (1495–1521), in Firenze, Pisa, and Livorno. The Tractatus de assecurationibus (TUI 1584 t. 6.2) was first published in Venezia in 1552, but Domenico Maffei has argued that its composition goes back to 1488. D. Maffei, ‘Il giureconsulto portoghese Pedro de Santarém autore del primo trattato sulle assicurazioni (1488)’, Boletim da Faculdade de direito da Universidade de Coimbra 59 (1983) 703–728. After its first publication the De assecurtionbus was reprinted many times, frequently in conjunction with Stracca’s De mercatura